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Summary: Clarke's private 9/11 testimony criticized Clinton
Review: 9/11 Commission member, former Navy Secretary John Lehman blasted ex-terrorism czar Richard Clarke Wednesday (03/24/04) afternoon for cashing in on this week's public hearings into America's worst disaster by using the forum to peddle his book.
Of Clarke's private testimony before the Commission, Lehman said, "I thought you let the chips fall where they may . . . Certainly the greater weight of [your criticism of the U.S. war on terrorism] fell during the Clinton years."
"But now we have the book," Lehman noted. "I've published books before and I must must say that I am green with envy at the promotion department of your publisher."
Lehman: "I never got [Commission member] Jim Thompson to stand before 50 photographers reading your book. And I certainly never got '60 Minutes' to coordinate the showing of its interview with you with 15 network news broadcasts, the selling of the movie rights and your appearance here today."
Lehman said that when he started to read press accounts of Clarke's book, "I said to myself, this can't be the same Dick Clarke that testified before us, because all of the promotional material and all of the spin in the networks was that this is a roundly, devastating attack - this book - on President Bush.
"That's not what I heard in the [private Commission] interviews.
"And I hope you're going to tell me, as you apologize to all the families for all of us who were involved in national security, that this tremendous difference - and not just in nuance but in the stories you choose to tell - is really the result of your editors and your promoters rather than your studied judgment."
[Your book] is so different from the whole thrust of your testimony to us. And similarly, when you add to it, the inconsistencies between what your promoters are putting out and what you yourself said as late as [last] August 5, you've got a real credibility problem."
"Because of my real, genuine, longtime admiration for you, I hope you'll resolve that credibility problem because I'd hate to see you become totally shoved to one side during the presidential campaign as an active partisan selling a book."
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Summary: Excellent book about what really happens in the Bush govt.
Review: This should be mandatory reading for all scholars and interested parties about what's wrong with the powers vested in the President. I shocked and appalled at the way the current govt. manages the Bush agenda without any regard for the facts.
It reads very well and full of facts supporting each claim. I think it's fair and balanced. Very illuminating.
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Summary: finding out why Bush is a disgrace for all Americans
Review: This was a fabulous book on finding the truth about how far your government will go to do a cover up. I have to admit I'm not high on the Bush administration, but I read this book with open eyes. The insight and truth this book unveils on how the Bush administration not only lied about what they knew of Osama Bin Laden, but how the USA could have stopped the attacks on 9/11 and simply did not want to.(...)
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Summary: What an awful book
Review: Heres the deal. Richard Clarke is an unemployed loser who is trying to rake in money and he realizes the only way he can do it is by muck raking. Hes mad at the people who fired him, down sized his "importance" and distrusted him. It is like George of Seinfeld slipping a "mickey" into his bosses drink, the boss that fired him. Clarke needs to jsut sit down and shut up because he is no longer a player in the game.
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Summary: Documentation at Last
Review: Well backed up, well written, hard hitting account of the spin the Bush administration has put on one of America's biggest tragedies for thier own gain. Clarke is an insider Republican who knows what he's talking about, and he doesnt shrink from the facts. Clarke holds the truth more valuable than his party affiliation and puts his career on the line in order to tell it. History will bear witness to the veracity of this information, long silenced by a government steeped in secrecy.
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Summary: Another con man revealed
Review: The credit for any success that this book has goes to the gullible public who choose to ignore or are too lazy to objectively discern the truth. We are not yet trained to overcome our emotional feelings with unbiased questions that reveal the true story. This book proves that anyone can write a book about anything if the publishers think it will sell. Truth or not, they will market it to those who will believe anything that supports their agenda. (...)
For those of you who think that this book is based on fact, Osama Bin Laden has a cave for you to share with him.
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Summary: This book is PROVEN rubbish
Review: Clarke is on tape contridicting the main point that he sets out in his book. Namely that Bush did nothing on terrorism until after 911. BUT, he is on tape saying just the opposite in 2002. Namely that Bush increased the counter-terrorism budget 5 fold and had plans drawn up to eliminate Al Qaeda in his FIRST MONTH after taking office. I guess the DNC promised Clarke to buy this book if he said what they wanted.
(...)
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Summary: Accomplishments
Review: Under the Bush administration, the Taliban is all but eliminated, the Afghanistan al Qaeda terrorism training camps have been destroyed, al Qaeda is on the run and Osama bin Ladan is hiding in some hole just like Saddam Hussein was. Add to that, Libya has voluntarily handed over tons of WMDs and Iran is now under the microscope for their very-real nuclear weapons program. Under the Clinton Administration nothing was accomplished - which was under your watch as the terrorism czar.
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Summary: The Truth about Richard Clarke
Review: You want the real truth about Richard Clarke read this part of a transcript posted on Fox News Web Site from an interview Richard Clarke gave in August 2000. Why has Richard Clarke changed his tune now? This book is nothing but political rubish. Read the entire transcript yourself on the Fox News Web Site. Transcript: Clarke Praises Bush Team in '02 Wednesday, March 24, 2004 WASHINGTON - The following transcript documents a background briefing in early August 2002 by President Bush's former counterterrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke to a handful of reporters, including Fox News' Jim Angle. In the conversation, cleared by the White House on Wednesday for distribution, Clarke describes the handover of intelligence from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration and the latter's decision to revise the U.S. approach to Al Qaeda. Clarke was named special adviser to the president for cyberspace security in October 2001. He resigned from his post in January 2003. RICHARD CLARKE: Actually, I've got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration. Second point is that the Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998. And there were a number of issues on the table since 1998. And they remained on the table when that administration went out of office - issues like aiding the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, changing our Pakistan policy -- uh, changing our policy toward Uzbekistan. And in January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years. And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, mid-January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent. And the point is, while this big review was going on, there were still in effect, the lethal findings were still in effect. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided. So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda. The sixth point, the newly-appointed deputies - and you had to remember, the deputies didn't get into office until late March, early April. The deputies then tasked the development of the implementation details, uh, of these new decisions that they were endorsing, and sending out to the principals. Over the course of the summer - last point - they developed implementation details, the principals met at the end of the summer, approved them in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding five-fold, changing the policy on Pakistan, changing the policy on Uzbekistan, changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance. And then changed the strategy from one of rollback with Al Qaeda over the course [of] five years, which it had been, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of al Qaeda. That is in fact the timeline.
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Summary: An insider's look at the REAL U.S. anti-terrorist policy
Review: In this book, Richard Clarke, counterterrorism coordinator for President Bill Clinton and President Bush I, asserts that while neither president did enough to prevent the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the "Dubya" administration has undermined American national security by using the 9/11 attacks for political advantage, ignoring the threat of Al Qaeda in order to invade Iraq for profit. This is a riveting piece of material that every American should read -- even (especially?) those not terribly politically minded. Modern America is threatened both by foreign terrorists, and from within by the Christian right that uses the fearful post-9/11 climate to pick away at our civil liberties. Clarke provides us with an insider's view, to educate us...information we must utilize to vote, protest, etc. -- to put our country back on the platform from which is was built: for the people, by the people. With benevolence. [...]
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